Company says regulatory hurdles block recycling effort

A tanker fills up with drinking water for use at the Sunrise Powerlink project

Other projects

Managers of big construction projects say they try to use environmentally sound water sources for dust control and soil compaction, but cost and practical complications commonly prevent it. While many utilities sell recycled water at a discount, the delivery system is limited and that makes it hard for developers to tap.

Take Palomar Medical Center West on the west edge of Escondido. The towering, $956 million facility includes a sprawling planted roof designed as an ecological showpiece.

Hospital spokesman Andy Hoang said reclaimed water wasn’t available from the hospital’s provider for construction at the 53-acre site and the hospital hasn’t tracked the amount of drinking water it has used. He said the hospital will be connected to the reclaimed water system for landscape irrigation and cooling the on-site power plant.

Likewise, Sudberry Properties isn’t buying recycled water for construction on the initial 45-acre phase of a much larger development in Mission Valley. Formerly known as Quarry Falls, today it’s called Civita and billed as a place that uses the latest green-building practices.

Marco Sessa, senior vice president of development for Sudberry, said using recycled water would have involved lots of costly hauling from San Diego’s water reclamation plant and created logistical challenges due to differences in the size of hauling trucks and the trucks used on-site to spread water.

He said work crews have tapped large volumes of rain water on-site to minimize reliance on drinking water. Roughly 450,000 gallons of city water have been used during grading.

Plans call for Civita to include a water recycling system for irrigation once the site is populated.

San Diego Gas & Electric uses roughly 300,000 gallons a day of drinking water for construction of its 117-mile Sunrise Powerlink transmission line through the backcountry even though the company touted the use of recycled wastewater at its groundbreaking.

The company never promised to use recycled water, and is not required to by law. Executives say they have run into similar obstacles as other developers with this goal, including regulatory delays.

Regulators for their part say they are doing everything they can to clear the way for use of reclaimed wastewater, which flows through purple pipes for use in irrigation.

Richard Miller, a spokesman for the local chapter of the Sierra Club, criticized the company and its professional project managers for not doing more to make sure they had reclaimed water from the start.

“They should know what the permitting processes are,” he said. “That is their job. If they don’t know that in the beginning, they are misleading the public.”

The Sunrise Powerlink gained regulatory approval in 2010 after years of debate. It’s projected to cost about $1.9 billion and send up to 1,000 megawatts of power to San Diego County from the Imperial Valley. It’s supposed to be done in late 2012.

SDG&E construction crews fill tankers at fire hydrants near Lake Murray and haul it to the construction zone, concerning residents such as John Pilch, president of the San Carlos Area Council. He’s worried about wear-and-tear on neighborhood streets and the mixed message sent in using drinking water on a massive construction job.